AP Environmental Science Unit 2: Biodiversity

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key terms and concepts from AP Environmental Science Unit 2 on Biodiversity.

Biodiversity

The diversity of life forms in an ecosystem, measured across three levels: genetic diversity, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity.

Genetic Diversity

A measure of how different the genomes (sets of genes) are among individuals within a population of a given species.

Species Diversity

The number of different species in an ecosystem and the balance or evenness of the population sizes of all species present.

Ecosystem Diversity

The number of different habitats available in a given area.

Species Richness

The total number of different species found in an ecosystem.

Species Evenness

A measure of how individual organisms in an ecosystem are balanced between the different species present.

Bottleneck Event

An environmental disturbance that drastically reduces population size and kills organisms regardless of their genome, resulting in a smaller surviving population with reduced genetic diversity.

Inbreeding Depression

A condition occurring when closely related individuals mate in small populations, increasing the likelihood that offspring inherit harmful genetic mutations due to receiving similar genotypes from both parents.

Ecosystem Resilience

The ability of an ecosystem to return to its original conditions following a major environmental disturbance.

Ecosystem Services

Goods and services provided by natural ecosystems that are beneficial to humans, often monetarily or for life-sustaining purposes.

Provisioning Services

Goods or products directly taken from ecosystems or made from natural resources provided by ecosystems, such as food, lumber, rubber, and medicinal compounds.

Regulating Services

Benefits provided by ecosystem processes that moderate and stabilize natural conditions, such as climate regulation, air and water filtration, soil quality maintenance, and pollination.

Supporting Services

Fundamental natural processes—such as photosynthesis, soil creation, and nutrient cycling—that sustain ecosystems and allow them to support life and all other ecosystem services.

Cultural Services

Non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems, including revenue from recreational activities (such as park fees and tourism) and profits or knowledge gained from scientific discoveries.

Island Biogeography

The study of ecological relationships, community structures, and the distribution of organisms on geographic islands or isolated habitat islands.

Adaptive Radiation

The rapid evolution of a single ancestral species into several new species that utilize different resources and fill distinct ecological niches to reduce competition.

Ecological Range of Tolerance (aka fundamental niche)

The range of abiotic conditions—such as temperature, salinity, pH, flow rate, or sunlight—that an organism or species can endure before experiencing injury or death.

Optimal Range

The specific range of environmental conditions within an organism's tolerance range where individuals survive, grow, and reproduce efficiently.

Zone of Physiological Stress

The range of environmental conditions in which an organism can survive, but experiences stress such as decreased growth, infertility, or reduced activity.

Zone of Intolerance

The extreme range of environmental conditions outside an organism's limit, leading to injury or death through mechanisms such as thermal shock, suffocation, or dehydration.

Periodic Natural Disturbance

An environmental disturbance that occurs with regular, predictable frequency, such as seasonal dry and wet cycles.

Episodic Natural Disturbance

An environmental disturbance that occurs occasionally with irregular frequency, such as hurricanes, droughts, and forest fires.

Random Natural Disturbance

An environmental disturbance that occurs with no regular frequency or predictable schedule, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and asteroid impacts.

Adaptation

A mutated or inherited genetic trait that increases an organism's fitness, improving its chance of surviving and reproducing in its environment.

Natural Selection

The process whereby organisms with traits better suited to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully, passing those advantageous traits to offspring.

Selective Pressure

An environmental factor or condition (such as predation, drought, or disease) that reduces the survival or reproduction of individuals lacking specific advantageous adaptations.

Ecological Succession

A predictable series of structural changes and plant community growth stages that an ecosystem undergoes over time following a disturbance or initial creation.

Primary Succession

Ecological succession that begins in a newly formed or exposed area of bare rock with no pre-existing soil, where pioneer species gradually form soil.

Secondary Succession

Ecological succession that occurs in an area where an existing plant community has been cleared by a disturbance, but established soil remains intact.

Pioneer Species

Early successional organisms—such as mosses, lichens, or fast-growing, sun-tolerant weeds—that are the first to colonize unoccupied rock or soil habitats.

Climax Community Species

Late successional, large, slow-growing plant species (such as shade-tolerant oak and maple trees) that dominate a mature, stable ecosystem.

Keystone Species

A species whose presence and ecological activities exert a disproportionately large role in determining and maintaining community structure within an ecosystem.

Indicator Species

A plant or animal species whose presence, absence, abundance, scarcity, or chemical composition serves as a sign of specific environmental conditions or overall ecosystem health.

foundation species

A species that creates, modifies or maintains a habitat

founder effect

a small population that of a larger population that gets off course and starts a new colony somewhere else. Likely leads to less genetic diversity in the new population.

Endemic species

lives only in one geographic location

Generalist species

lives in a wide variety of environmental conditions

Specialist species

lives in a narrow range of environmental conditions

keystone species

a species that has less abundance but has a large and important effect on their environment or ecosystem

Resistance

in an ecosystem, a measure of how much disruption can affect the flows of energy and matter

volcanic disruptions

disruptions due to volcanic activity usually having a long term effect on the location

allopatric speciation

occurs with geographic isolation, through founder effect or natural selection

sympatric speciation

occurs without geographic isolation, usually through process called polyploidy

species-area curve

a description of how the number of species on an island increases with the area of the island

realized niche

the range of a biotic and biotic conditions under which a species actually lives

intermediate disturbance hypothesis

ecosystems experiencing intermediate levels of disturbance will favor a higher level of diversity of species than those with high or low disturbance levels

seasonal disruptions

seasonal temperature changes often determine migration patterns

evolution

a change in the genetic composition of a population overtime

microevolution

evolution at population level

macroevolution

evolution that gives rise to new species, genera, families, classes, or phyla

mutation

more common in larger populations, can become an adaptation when improves fitness

gene flow

individual moves from one population to another altering genetic composition of both and brings lacking genetic variation

genetic drift

random changes through random mating and is important to small populations

fitness

individual’s ability to survive and reproduce

the effect of habitat loss on generalists and specialists

causes the loss of specialist species early on and very quickly. If continued can lead to the loss of generalist species.

what helps resilience

Biodiversity increases resilience because there is a wider variety of species to react to the disturbance

what helps resistance

species diversity helps resistance by enabling an ecosystem to withstand the disturbance

effect of loss of keystone species

leads to dramatic shifts in ecosystem community and often causes decline in biodiversity and collapse of food web

island adaptations

island species often have very specific adaptations for the unique environment they live in that usually leads to speciation

succession in aquatic biomes

intertidal zones have storms remove life from rocks for primary

streams with major flooding

lakes and ponds have glaciers scour sediments and vegetation

process of allopatric succession

different environmental conditions cause variation and causes reproductive isolation. then forms distinct species.

sympatric speciation

occurs through polyploidy process where there are extra chromosome sets, 3-6 accidental or intentional, and cannot interbreed generally leading to distinct species

relationship between habitat and species diversity

higher habitat diversity makes an increase in total number of species present.

evaluation biodiversity

must consider richness and evenness. If richness is equal and evenness is different base off of evenness.

examples of provisioning services

lumber, medicine, food, fresh water

examples of regulating services

water purification, pollination, air filtration, climate regulation

examples of supporting services

nutrient cycling, soil creation, habitat provisioning

examples of cultural services

recreation, tourism, scientific knowledge, religious sites

impacts of food production

increase in nitrogen, clearing land, increase in carbon as greenhouse gas

fish and shellfish production

aquaculture, commercial fishing has cause unevenness between species populations

water availability

north africa, middle east, and mexico american west water is used faster than replenished, which causes reduce in consumption and water is polluted by agriculture

monetary value

thought instrumental values could be assigned monetary values to prove importance of ecosystems, came to total of $125 trillion

relationship between species and colonization

as number of species increase the rate of colonization decreases

where to conservation

while important to conserve all areas it is most important to preserve highly diverse areas and islands, due to islands having specialists that can be very important.

examining once present plants

pollen from once present plants settles at the bottom of lakes and ponds near the area and gets compacted in the sediments, which can be examined to find which plants were present

cycles effect on resilience

biogeochemical and hydrological cycle interactions affect ecosystem resilience. if they are unhealthy then the ecosystem’s resilience is slower

finding historic temperature using composition

small protists named foraminifera are used because different species lived in different temperatures, so fossils are examined in layers of sediment

finding historic temperature using air bubbles

This shows difference in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere because air bubbles in ice contain air from timer period. Oxygen can also be used because higher temperatures carry more heavy oxygen

relationship of CO2 and temperature

increasing amounts of co2 cause increase in temperature. These higher temperatures cause the ocean to not be able to hold as much co2 gas

using fossils to find sea level

examining fossils on and that are from sea creatures can indicate past sea levels based on their presence in sediment layers, showing how far sea levels have risen or fallen over time.

artificial selection or rapid evolution

human determining which individuals to breed, typically with a preconeived set of traits in mind

natural selection or slow evolution

the environment determines which individuals survive an reproduce. theory by Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin

Darwin’s theory of evolution

individuals produce an excess of offspring. Not all can survive.. Individuals differ in traits. Difference can be passed on. Differences in traits are associated with differences in ability to survive and reproduce. Natural selection can favor many.

effects of succession

species increase then plateau and may slightly decline at climax community. Increase in richness. Increase in biomass. Productivity sharply declines form shrubs to trees